Goodwin Harold Leland
The Blue Ghost Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

CHAPTER XI
The Ghost Reappears

Belsely, the tenant farmer, had no difficulty in establishing a connection between Jethro Collins, real-estate agent, and the Frostola man. He made a quick trip to town on the morning following the flight to Falls Church, and reported that the ice-cream vendor was renting a room from Collins.

"No doubt about that connection," was Rick's comment. Then, because they had not talked to Belsely at any length, he questioned the farmer about the appearances of the ghost in the fields nearby.

"I've seen him four or five times, not counting the night you chased him," the farmer said. "Funny thing about the night he got the alarm going on your plane."

"What was funny?" Scotty asked.

"He was alone."

"But he's always alone," Rick exclaimed.

"Nope. He's alone at the mine, but when he walks the fields he has some of his men with him. Sometimes one, sometimes two or three. Only saw him alone that once – the night you chased him."

This was a new angle. Rick and Scotty looked at each other, puzzled.

"You've seen the others?" Scotty asked.

"Sure have. Not close to, you can bet. Got no wish to tangle with spirits, not me. But I saw them. They walked in the cornfield on top of the mine hill, and they walked in the field where your plane is. They was lookin' for somethin'."

"How do you know?" Rick demanded.

"They'd walk, then stop, and bend over. Like they were searchin' the ground. Bet one of 'em lost a head and is huntin' for it."

"Did you see where they came from, or went to?"

"Not me. I got curiosity, but not the kind that killed that cat they tell about. Like I say, me and spirits don't mix, none to speak of."

Rick pondered the information. "Are these ghostly walks at nine o'clock?"

"No. Mostly around midnight."

Rick turned to Scotty. "What do you make of that?"

"Nothing," Scotty replied. "Not a thing. You say you've seen as many as three men plus the Blue Ghost?"

"That's correct. None of them shine like the Blue Ghost himself, though. Most curious thing I ever saw was the night they pulled a wagon, collectin' the invisible dead from the battlefield."

Rick's hair had an impulse to stand on end. The calm, factual way in which the tenant farmer piled mystery on mystery was incredible.

"You mean you saw ghosts pulling a ghost wagon?" the boy asked incredulously.

"Like I said. More a cart than a wagon, I suppose you'd say. They hauled it back and forth, and the mist trailed out behind it. Once in a while they'd stop and gather and look at the ground. Must be they were searchin' for their dead. Don't know why else they'd need a wagon. And that Blue Thing leadin' the way every time. Up and down, back and forth."

Scotty asked, "Where were you while all this was going on?"

"In the orchard, scared pink, but not so scared as curious."

A man of real courage, Rick thought. Believed in ghosts, but had the nerve to watch them in action. "Mr. Belsely, you said none of them shone like the Blue Ghost. Did the others look solid?"

"They were dark shadows, that's all. No moon to see by, or at least not enough. Couldn't make out what they looked like."

"Has anyone else seen them in the fields?" Scotty wanted to know.

"Sure enough. Two or three that I know of, maybe more."

The tenant farmer paused, then asked a question of his own. "Why are you so interested in this new ice-cream man?"

Rick considered. "He interested us," he said finally. "He's not a Virginian. And he didn't seem to know much about the ghost."

Belsely's comment brought Rick's carefully built up assumptions tumbling down around his ears. "Oh, he knows about the ghost, all right. He saw it once that I know of, when he was sellin' ice cream to the girl campers." The farmer added, "I was standin' right next to him at the time."

Rick looked at Scotty helplessly. "Thank you, Mr. Belsely," he said unhappily. "You've certainly given us plenty to think about!"

The boys watched as the tenant farmer walked up the road to his own house, as solid and dependable as the very earth he walked on. There was no arguing with what he had seen, only with his interpretation of it. Clearly, Rick thought, he had seen figures in the fields on several occasions. But what had the figures actually been doing?

"Don't be too discouraged," Scotty offered. "The ice-cream man seeing the ghost doesn't mean he isn't involved. Wasn't the girls' picnic the first time the ghost made a public appearance? He may have been checking on the way the ghost looked."

"What do you suppose Belsely was doing there?" Rick asked.

"Probably just wandered over to see what was going on. I've noticed people are pretty casual about the affairs over there. No reason why Belsely wouldn't take an evening stroll to see how the party was going."

"Well keep our plan," Rick decided. "It's the only lead we have, so we'd better use it."

By the time the Sons of the Old Dominion started to arrive for the annual feast, the boys were in their chosen position, upstream from the mine at a point where they couldn't fail to see all who traveled the road, but where no one could see them through the thick screen of foliage.

They had applied insect repellent liberally, but the insects swarmed around them anyway, although bites were few. They lay quietly and watched car after car arrive, but without seeing a familiar face.

During a lull in the traffic Rick asked, "Do you suppose we got here too late? He may have come earlier."

"I doubt it. Besides, where would he have parked his scooter? It isn't anywhere between us and the mine because we looked, and I doubt that he'd walk any farther than this."

Rick had to agree that it wouldn't make much sense to park the vehicle any farther away than the spot they had selected from which to watch.

The traffic ceased. All Sons of the Old Dominion apparently had arrived, and all were presumably feasting on good food. It was only eight o'clock; the ghost wasn't due for an hour. Rick thought an hour was probably more than the ghost producer needed to get ready for his appearance. Only a few minutes might be needed. That meant he and Scotty would have to wait until a few minutes before nine, to be sure no one slipped by.

One late arrival roared past as they waited, and then all was quiet. At ten minutes to nine Rick admitted defeat. "Either he isn't coming, or he got there through the fields. Let's go see if he shows up."

As they hiked down the road, ears attuned for a motor vehicle behind them, Rick explained his theory of ghost production to Scotty. "There's only one way a transparent spook can be produced, and that's optically. In the movies they use a double exposure. The only way to produce an optical image on mist is with a projector of some kind."

"Spook projector," Scotty agreed. "Only where is this projector located?"

That, Rick pointed out, was the prize-winning question. "All we can do is keep an eye open for the projector beam."

"Both eyes," Scotty corrected.

It was one minute before nine when they arrived at the mine entrance. The Sons of the Old Dominion were still eating, but there was a lack of noise or joyousness that made Rick aware that the Sons knew about the ghost. He saw groups facing the place where the ghost would appear.

The boys were in front of the mine entrance. By unspoken agreement they moved to a position directly in front of the pool. If the ghost appeared, it would be almost over their heads. The shelf was too high for them to see into the water, but they were in a position where any human activity couldn't possibly be overlooked.

"On your toes," Scotty whispered. "Let's rush it while the Blue Ghost is still there."

Rick swallowed hard. In spite of his conviction that a human agency, and not a supernatural one, produced the Blue Ghost, he didn't care much for rushing right into the apparition. In fact, he didn't like it at all. The mist had felt clammy the first time, even though no harm had come to them. But, he told himself sternly, Scotty was right. They either had faith in their assumptions or they didn't.

"Wait until the show is almost over," Rick whispered.

A voice from behind them called, "Better get out of there, you two. That's where the ghost appears."

The boys turned to reassure their well-wisher, and in that moment a sigh went up from the crowd. Rick heard a sudden splash, and then the white mist was rising, billowing almost over their heads!

He watched, fascinated and scared, and saw the Blue Ghost appear. The apparition was elongated from Rick's viewpoint, but the act was the same. The boy saw no sign of a projector beam, no sign of any human agency, and the lack of both turned his knees to water. He was close – very close – yet he could detect no sign of human origin in the thing overhead. Horror swept through him. Had he been wrong, he and Scotty?

His pal's hand fell sharply on his back. "Let's get him, boy! Let's find out for once and all!"

Somehow he got his legs moving. He and Scotty went up the steep slope, scrambling right toward the thing that was now holding out bloody hands!

They were in the mist! Rick sensed the blueness around him, and with sick horror realized that the ghost continued his act as though they were not even there.

Scotty yelled, and in the same instant sharp pain swept across Rick's face. Bitter, terrible cold encompassed him, turned the skin on his face rigid, seared his eyeballs with cold so intense it was like burning heat. He staggered and fell, hands clutching his frozen face. He tried to yell for help and couldn't. He rolled down the hillside that he had climbed seconds before, and Scotty's falling body crashed into him, knocked the breath from him.

And overhead, the vision of the Union cavalry officer, face distorted in agony, faded slowly from sight, leaving only the icy, billowing mist.

CHAPTER XII
The Dead Water

Hands lifted Rick and Scotty to their feet and voices demanded to know what had happened. Other voices berated them, calling them a pair of young idiots for rushing a ghost like that.

Rick staggered in the grip of the supporting hands. His heart was pounding and there was a constriction in his chest. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his tear ducts spouted fluid to protect his eyes from the now-vanishing cold. His cheeks felt numb, but sensation was returning.

At last he regained his equilibrium and found his handkerchief. He mopped his face and suddenly realized that his face was flushed, as though with fever. The sensation of burning cold was gone. He took a deep breath, grateful to be nearly normal again.

Scotty was also back to near normal. To the questions from the surrounding circle of Sons of the Old Dominion they could only say that they didn't know what had happened.

"Suddenly our faces froze," Rick explained shakily. "At least mine did."

"Same here," Scotty supplemented.

"It was like the cold of … of … I don't know, really. It was cold, but like nothing I've ever experienced before. The shock was so great I just sort of crumpled and fell."

"Whatever made you rush right into the ghost like that?" a burly man wanted to know.

Rick shrugged. "We didn't think the ghost was real, and we wanted to see how it was produced."

"Do you believe it's real now?"

The boy shuddered. "I'm a whole lot closer to believing it," he admitted.

"At least we won't try football tactics on it again," Scotty added.

Seeing that the boys were all right, the group dispersed. In a few moments they were alone. Rick shook his head hard, to clear it. "Now where are we?" he asked.

Scotty laughed mirthlessly. "I'm glad you asked that. I'd be gladder if you could answer it."

"One thing more and I'm ready to call quits," Rick said. Common sense told him to beat a path to the Millers, but he was stubborn. He wasn't giving up yet. He searched until he found a coke bottle, then taking his nerve in both hands he climbed up to the pool. He let the bottle fill with spring water then rinsed it. When he was satisfied it was clean enough, he filled it from the pool – the same pool from which the ghostly mist had appeared only short minutes before.

Only then did he and Scotty leave the picnic grounds and proceed home to the Miller farmhouse.

The Millers and the girls were waiting. One look at the boys' faces and they knew something had happened.

Jan Miller said with quick intuition, "You're hurt!"

"Not permanently," Rick reassured her. "For a while we wondered, but it's okay now."

The Millers and the girls listened to their recital with mixed horror and relief that the effect of the cold had vanished so quickly. Dr. Miller's brows were knit as he tried to puzzle out what had happened.

"You saw no projection beam, I assume?"

"Not a trace," Rick said emphatically.

"You were actually in the mist when this cold effect hit you?" Dr. Miller asked.

"I was," Rick agreed. "How about you, Scotty?"

"Same. I was groping around trying to find something to get my hands on. I was actually in the pool of water. Rick was on the edge of it."

Dr. Miller considered. "Even if your assumption about dry ice is correct, Rick, that wouldn't explain the cold effect. If one touches dry ice, it is cold enough to cause a burning sensation, but had dry ice been used on you it would have taken chunks of it in contact with your skin. You felt nothing solid, I assume?"

Both boys shook their heads.

"Then we can rule out dry ice. I can't imagine what hit you."

"The Blue Ghost," Barby said, and shuddered visibly. "This ought to prove it, I guess."

Rick admitted it. "Ought to is right, but I'm stubborn enough to keep looking for a rational explanation. I got some water from the pool. Anyone want to look with me?"

They all did, and followed Rick to the kitchen. He set up the microscope and plugged in the substage light, then found a well slide and placed a drop of water on it. But examine the drop as he would, using the most powerful magnification, he could see nothing but a bit of brown debris that seemed to be a thread of withered alga.

He took another drop from the coke bottle and tried again with similar results. He shook the bottle and placed a third drop on a clean slide.

Rick focused the microscope on the drop of water. Yesterday – or was it the day before? He couldn't remember clearly he was so tired – the rock basin had been literally swarming with paramecia and other forms of life. Today, following the appearance of the ghost, the water from the basin was as devoid of life as the planet Jupiter.

He moved the well slide from side to side, bringing different parts of the drop under his lens. There was a tiny wisp of vegetable matter he recognized as a dead bit of Riccia, and a few black threads of algae.

Rick shook his head in bewilderment. "Whatever the Blue Ghost is," he stated, "it's a killer. The mob we saw is gone."

Dr. Miller took over the instrument and confirmed Rick's findings. "The water is dead," he said at last. "I don't know how useful it is to know that, but I can't imagine that a supernatural agency would bring death to millions of microscopic creatures. Yet, if it isn't supernatural, how is it done and who does it?"

"I've never seen such hard people to convince of anything," Barby declared. "All the evidence points to a real ghost, it seems to me. But you keep trying to prove something else and you don't get very far."

"We get as far as dead water and radioactive cement bags that don't contain cement," Rick pointed out. "For a while tonight I was about convinced that the ghost was supernatural, but I'm still going to be a doubting Thomas, at least until we run all leads into a dead end!"

CHAPTER XIII
The Night Watchers

Rick couldn't sleep. He kept trying for a comfortable position, but the hitherto excellent bed suddenly seemed full of lumps. His pillow wouldn't behave, either. It seemed determined to lump up and deprive him of sleep.

His body was tired enough, but his mind kept worrying the problem of the Blue Ghost endlessly, going over incidents and details, searching for a meaning, a clue that would lead to a conclusion.

What was the reason for the Blue Ghost? If he could only figure that much out the rest would follow naturally. If the assumption that the ghost was man-made was correct, there had to be some reason for the apparition.

So far as he knew, the ghost had had only one effect, and that was to reduce drastically the use of the picnic ground in front of the old mine. According to the Millers, the grounds were in constant use most years, with family parties, group affairs, and young people spending considerable time in swimming, eating, ball games, and all the other amusements of people who sought the coolness of trees and water to escape the Virginia summer heat.

Now use of the grounds was restricted to affairs of long standing that it would be inconvenient to change or to cancel.

That was a definite effect, he admitted to himself. But who could profit by it?

There was only one possible clue, and that lay in the midnight prowlings of the Blue Ghost and his varying number of companions. Turning the picnic area into a forbidding place, a haunted ground, would give the ghost and friends ample opportunity to roam the upper and lower fields without interference.

Only, why roam the fields?

Somehow, the radioactive dust in the cement bags must tie into it, but Rick couldn't imagine the connection. He thought of a secret uranium strike and rejected it. Empty bags pointed to something gotten rid of, not something gained by a discovery.

The thought was intriguing. If he assumed the bags had arrived full, what had happened to the contents? He tried to think of uses for the powdered ore and couldn't. Even if he could imagine a secret processing plant to extract the uranium for some purpose, there wasn't enough. A sufficient quantity of ore to provide even a gram of uranium metal would mean literally thousands of bags and they had found less than a dozen.

Of course there was the cart Belsely had seen. Rick couldn't credit the farmer's notion that the ghost soldiers had been collecting ghost bodies of the long-dead. But what had the cart been doing? The very idea of a cart led to the idea of something too heavy to be carried without mechanical aid. What? Bags of radioactive ore dust?

He was still tossing in his bed and chewing the data fine when the dogs began to bark. He listened. The barking was far away, probably a mile or more. There were farms on the road to town, and probably all of them had dogs.

Scotty spoke in a whisper. "What makes dogs bark at night?"

"Maybe a fox," Rick replied.

"Or a ghost?"

Rick sat bolt upright. "Maybe!"

Scotty swung to a sitting position on the side of his bed. "I've been listening to you twisting and turning for an hour. If you're going to keep me awake, it might as well be useful. What say we go look?"

Rick looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was past midnight. "No chases ending in quarries?"

Scotty's chuckle was low. "No chases. Listen a minute!"

Rick held his breath, and heard what Scotty's keen ears had detected. There was the sound of a car somewhere far away. He couldn't tell the direction, but he was sure it was not the road from town because the bedroom windows opened on the town side of the farmhouse.

The night was clear and still, and sounds would carry great distances. The car might even be on the main highway, about five miles away.

"Let's get going," Rick said softly. He fumbled for his clothes on the chair at the foot of his bed and dressed quietly. Scotty was doing the same on his own side of the room.

They checked flashlights, then started down the stairs. The treads creaked noisily, as is the case in old houses, and Dr. Miller's voice stopped them.

"Going spook hunting?"

"Yes, sir," Rick replied softly. "We're going to see why the dogs are barking."

"No chases," the scientist warned. "If you should see anything, stay away from it. Watch from a respectful distance."

"We will," Rick promised.

Outside, the night was lighted only by stars and a crescent moon. Trees were dark shapes against the lighter darkness of the night as the boys made their way through the orchard. They headed for the plane, intending to stop at the edge of the orchard to reconnoiter.

The field before them stretched dark and empty to the trees along the creek, except for the angular bulk of the plane. Rick watched and listened with every sense alert. Insects hummed now and then, but that was all.

"Let's get to the tree belt," Scotty said in a whisper. "We can watch both fields from there."

"Okay." Rick led the way at a half trot that covered ground rapidly. In a few minutes they were across the creek and among the trees. They slowed their pace, stopping now and then to listen. The dogs were still barking, but the noise came from far away, on the other side of the hill in which the mine was located.

Scotty took the lead as they approached the picnic grounds. He was noiseless as a shadow, and Rick tried hard to step exactly in his footprints to avoid any noise.

Using the great oaks for cover, Scotty moved to the picnic grounds, among the tables and stone cooking pits. Suddenly he took Rick's arm and squeezed. Rick stopped instantly, ready for whatever action was indicated.

Scotty put his lips to Rick's ear. "Look around the tree, on top of the mine in the upland cornfield. Be very careful."

Rick moved into position, then with extreme caution he peered around the protecting tree. The first thing he saw on the hill was the Blue Ghost, not in his apparition form, but as the human-headed light they had chased. Then he realized that he was also seeing a form under the light, a human shape silhouetted faintly against the dark sky!

He choked back an exclamation. There were two other shapes, unlighted, but clearly human. This was what the tenant farmer had seen! But what were they doing in the cornfield? In a moment it became clear. The three were coming his way!

Scotty squeezed his shoulder and pointed up. Rick realized suddenly that they were hiding behind the oak in which they had watched unsuccessfully for the Blue Ghost. He jumped for the lowest branch and quickly hauled himself into the protecting foliage. Scotty was close behind him.

Through openings in the foliage they saw the Blue Ghost make his way down the hillside with his two companions, saw the three pause at the basin in which the ghost made his public appearances. Rick shuddered as he heard soft, ghostly laughter. He was convinced that he watched three men, but the memory of the bitter, burning cold on his face was still too fresh and green not to feel a reaction.

The ghostly trio continued down the slope to the picnic grounds and turned to the road that led to the bridge. Rick would have given much for enough moonlight to see details, but he could see only the three vague shapes. He thought the figure with the softly lighted apparatus on his head carried something in one hand, but he wasn't sure.

Not until the trio passed out of sight behind the trees did the boys descend from the tree, then they paused for a whispered consultation that couldn't have been heard three feet away.

"They must be heading for the field where the plane is parked," Rick guessed. "We want to keep an eye on them."

"That we will," Scotty assured him. "Follow me, old son. We're making real progress tonight!"

Scotty led the way through the tree belt to the bank of the creek. He paused in the trees long enough to be sure the ghost trio had crossed the creek, then picked positions behind the earthworks erected by Confederate soldiers long ago.

Rick watched the ghosts – for he thought of them by that useful term even though he now knew they were mortal – as they walked slowly across the field. He saw them pause, and saw the dark figures shorten as they bent over. He took a bearing on the spot, using the dim shape of his plane for one reference and the bridge for another. He thought he could locate the position again by daylight.

In a moment the three moved on again, while Rick watched, puzzled. He felt Scotty move and put his head close to hear what his pal had to say. "They had to come from somewhere, and I suspect it was by car. They didn't come up the road to town, so they must have used the road in the valley on the other side of the hill. I'm going to take a look. If there's a car there, I can at least get a license number. You watch 'em. If I'm not back by the time they cross to this side, don't worry. I won't get caught. Just go on home and wait for me."

Rick whispered an okay, and Scotty melted into the night with the noiseless skill that Rick so much admired. Then he turned his attention to the ghosts once more.

Rick counted five stops in various parts of the field. After the last one, the trio turned, recrossed the bridge, moving briskly, climbed the hill, and disappeared into the cornfield. Mission accomplished, apparently. What had the mission been?

According to Belsely, this happened each time, except for the occasion when a cart had been used. What were they hunting? Or, if they weren't hunting, what were they doing? Rick felt frustrated. To be so close, yet to be unable to see anything but vague shapes in the darkness!

Tomorrow he and Scotty would search both fields in an effort to find what the Blue Ghost sought, or to try to figure out what he and his friends were doing.

Scotty caught up with him as he was crossing the field by his plane. The dark-haired boy was triumphant. "They had a car, all right, and the registration was in a container on the steering wheel. I've got all the dope. Probably I shouldn't have done it, but I sneaked a quick look at the name. Can you imagine what it is?"

"Jethro Collins?"

"Nope. It's Hilleboe. Dr. Miller's next-door neighbor!"